creative writing

In Defense of Rudolph

~ TheCobblersDaughter ~ Leave a comment

141204135426-01-holiday-tv-and-movies-story-topRecently I heard about the kerfuffle regarding Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer, the stop motion animation movie from 1964. In case you’re unaware, the movie has been criticized very recently for being pro-bully. (And just to be clear, this movie came out a few years before I was born, and I’m here to tell you, it’s been critiqued for decades).

My kids grew up watching this movie, just as I did with my parents, and it has been a source of laughter around the dinner table and a conversation starter. We love the scene, for example, when the elves call “lunch break” and Hermey’s angry boss looks at him and says, “Not for you!”

Is there yelling and teasing in the movie? Yes. My kids and I find humor in the erratic behavior. Not because we are cold-blooded or evil, but because we can relate to Rudolph and Hermey. It isn’t just bullies who tease people who are “different.” In his awesome book Behave, Robert Sapolsky tells us it’s an innate human quality to malign difference, and we have to learn not do it.  It’s also a innate animal behavior (which, if I am correct, humans are animals.) Think here: chickens pecking each other.

One aspect of meanness no one mentioned is when Hermey and Rudolph ask to stay at the Island of Misfit Toys and the lion says “No. But you can do something for me.” It is so outrageously rude that my kids and I have to laugh, whether out of sheer disbelief of discomfort. How dare he deny them a place to stay and then ask for a favor.

Frankly, I have bullied and I have been bullied. I am not proud to admit bullying a girl from Lebanon in third grade. Two years later I received my comeuppance from a boy I loved who called me Ugly, Monkey Face, and Grape Ape from fifth grade to twelfth. Also, very recently I’ve been ghosted, snubbed, and triangulated by a couple of bullies.

I am not pro-bully. I am pro “let’s talk about the bullying in this movie.” Can you believe Santa was so mean to Donner and Rudolph? Can you believe the whole town shunned Rudolph until he became useful? Can you believe characters in the movie apologized to Hermey and Rudolph for being mean to them?

Bullies are never going away. Look at our President! And, if you don’t believe that, I’ll show you reindeer who can fly. I don’t have a solid answer for how to deal with a bully, because they are all different. But the ones I am dealing with now — I avoid them like last year’s fruitcake.

This is not about you.

~ TheCobblersDaughter ~ Leave a comment

Sometimes it feels so good to be pissed off. When I’m angry, I feel powerful, eager to blast whoever offended me, cut me off in traffic, or amputated me out of his life. And yet, sometimes the anger makes me feel out of control. What did I say? What did I do? Why did I react that way? It’s exhausting. While the screaming and sarcasm feels cathartic at the time, afterward I’m left feeling downtrodden.

They say all arguments begin and end with ourselves. I believe it, and yet, I have relationships with people who can ignite me and burn me to ash in a moment. Sometimes it’s hard for me to remember I must control my behavior, especially when I’m highly emotional. How I feel and act is about me. And, your feelings and your behavior is about you.

Think about a day when you woke in a bad mood. You stubbed your toe on the door to the bathroom. There’s a nearly bare toilet paper left on the roll, which you didn’t notice before you went. Someone used most of the hot water, so your shower was about luke warm. And when you poured milk into your coffee, curdles floated to the top.

So, you drive to your favorite coffee place and order breakfast. The server asks, “How’s your morning?” and you answer “Fine,” when you want to say, “It has sucked so far.” She gives you the right coffee order but the wrong breakfast sandwich. Sausage? I wanted bacon. The world is your enemy.

Think about a day when you woke feeling light. Your dog rolled over in bed and invited you to rub his belly. Your shower was just the right temperature. Your son told you he loved you three times before you left for work. You did food prep over the weekend, so you have overnight oats for breakfast and lunches for the week. When you drive to your favorite coffee place, the person ahead of you pays for your beverage. The world is your oyster. (If you like oysters, and I do.)

It’s important to hang onto those good days, relish them. Smile as often as you can. Realize that the friend who ignores you is mad at himself. The person who cut you off while driving is oblivious. Everyone is living in their own little world, stubbing their toes and running out of toilet paper. That has nothing to do with you.

 

The Truth Is Sometimes Painful

~ TheCobblersDaughter ~ 1 Comment

I grew up with a father who loathed dishonesty. I credit his Italian American pride, or perhaps growing up catholic, but nothing made my father angrier than learning he’d been lied to. He tended to be “brutally honest,” and the people who loved and admired him appreciated that. As his daughter, I feared his truth-telling when I was as a girl because I was extremely sensitive, but eventually I grew to admire the trait.

You have to be courageous, confident, and often live with regret when you are honest, because people rarely want to hear the truth. The image I’ve included in this post is a sketch from my son. In order to remember his spelling words, he sketched faces beside them expressing what he believed conveyed the word. When you look at the faces beside “truthfulness,” although one wears a halo, they both look anxious. Telling the truth is hard; hearing the truth is hard.

My father once told me, “You couldn’t be more like me if you tried.” Although I was sincerely flattered to hear that, I knew it meant I am also brutally honest, have a terrible poker face, and tend to alienate people because I struggle with being dishonest even in polite conversation when sometimes you should be. This is not to say I have never told a lie. I have. And some have caused irreparable damage in my life. It’s just that lying to people causes me great internal struggle, reddens my face, and fills me with crippling guilt.

Similar to most people, it’s also not easy for me to hear the truth. When people have told me I’m too analytical, sensitive, dramatic, or that I remember more negative details than positive, I stiffen with defensiveness. All of the preceding statements are true. I am also self-deprecating, affectionate, and loyal. The older I get the kinder I am to myself (and others), and I try to work with not against my human flaws.

One of my most irritating traits, I’m guessing because I’ve received a lot of flack for it, is my incurable need to discover the “why” behind just about everything. Why did my mother leave? Why did my stepmother beat me? Why do dishonest people seem to have more success than honest ones? Why did my brother get killed? Why did my husband die? Why do I have so much trouble sustaining a romantic relationship when others seem to just do it? Why are people mean? Why I did reject the man I believe is my true love?

On a positive note, once I process the Why in my head, through writing, art, or talking, I can usually let it go. In some cases, like with the death of my brother, I’ve had to make peace with not knowing why it happened. That has taken 30 years. I’m still struggling with the true love question. The other whys might be explained with psychology, self-help books, chats with friends, or talk therapy–of which I’m a huge advocate. But one important lesson I’ve learned is that in order to process these questions and heal, you have to be 100% truthful.

In the book, The Courage to Heal, which I highly recommend if you’ve suffered any personal trauma, the word courage is aptly used. It’s so much easier, and fun, to ignore our flawed humanness and not heal. For years, I was the party girl, loved getting drunk, being around people, being loud and obnoxious, all in an effort not to spend time alone and seek the truth within myself. I’d gone to therapy, but never engaged fully with the tenets. It took my loving someone other than myself to see how badly I needed help.

This person is still in my life, and because we’ve hurt each other, we have had to start rebuilding trust from the bottom up. Being honest takes courage, confidence, and working through regret to move forward when we hurt each other now. But, as you’ve probably heard or experienced, there is no greater reward than having an honest, open relationship with someone you love. And I want that.

 

 

 

 

Navigating Different Communication Styles

~ TheCobblersDaughter ~ 8 Comments

Over the past 18 months, I’ve been meeting with a behavioral therapist, as often as once a week. When I started, I had been sitting in a pit of despair after realizing too late what a special and rewarding relationship I had with my husband of nine years. I had turned 40 in 2008 and sort of lost my mind over the next two years. The collateral damage incurred by us and our sweet family post-split still nags at all of us. We are healing, albeit slowly.

Through my therapy I’ve learned that one of the issues “Eric” and I dealt with during our marriage and divorce involves our vastly different communication styles. We are similar in that we’re both passionate, quick-tempered and stubborn. However, I am a moving-toward quick-processing extrovert (MTQPE), and he is a moving-away slow-processing introvert (MASPI). Night and day. Black and white. Scorpio and Taurus.

Defining the styles. Moving-toward means I’m the woman who talks to strangers and wants to save the world even when it’s inconvenient for me. Moving-away Eric hangs in the background and observes the scene before he makes a move. The night we met, I walked up to his adorable self at Little Harry’s Airport Bar in Lewiston, Idaho, and said, “Hi. I’m Cindy. Wanna buy me a drink?”

Eric likes to listen and assess, and he’s good at both. I like to chat, on and on, and recharge when I’m around people. Eric recharges by spending time alone. Quick-processor me can call him on a Monday at 8:00 a.m. and say, “Wanna take the kids to the theme park this Friday? Do ya? Huh? I’ll drive. I’ll buy the tickets. What do you think? Huh?” Slow-processor Eric would probably take a minute to answer: “I don’t know. Let me check and get back to you.”

When you’re in love with someone, these differences seem minor. But after years of mistaken assumptions and misinterpreted silence, they can wear on a person, even destroy an unexamined relationship. And then, when you’re in the middle of a breakup, these differences cause real arguments.

Being aware and strategic. Eric lives in his head much of the time (he’s amazing at self-reflection) but I process my life out loud, through talking. If you are a MASPI, like Eric, I would drive you bonkers. If he has anything on his plate, work issues, personal stuff, bills, he would prefer to slide the theme park to the bottom of the stack until he was ready to tackle it simply to avoid feeling overwhelmed. Meanwhile, I’m doing aerobics, playing paddle ball with one hand and whirling a figdget spinner in the other.

Eric and I have been divorced six long years. In the past ten months, we have been scheduling monthly “conversations” where we talk about the kids, our lives, and manage our different communication styles. One of the most important things I’ve learned relies on the premise that my style is no better than his style. They are simply different. In this post-therapy stage we’re in, Eric and I work hard to treat each other with dignity, and examine and respect the styles.

Being versus foreseeing. Being an MTQPE, I would love to know exactly when I’m going to see and talk to Eric. I recharge when I’m around him. But, when a moving-toward person moves too quickly or too often, a moving-away person tends to get his energy zapped and needs more space. That is a style, not necessarily a strategy.

Eric is content just being. He doesn’t need to plan every movement of his day or his life. I, on the other hand, want to see into my future. When will we meet again? When we will talk again? Forward, forward, forward. One of the things my therapist helps with is my feeling comfortable in the not knowing. (Eric tries to meet me halfway by communicating more.)

We are less than a year into this process of trying to communicate effectively. We stumble. We piss each other off. We spend hours laughing. It’s an unpredictable way of living. But, I am slowly gaining comfort and working to make him feel safe in my presence. The closer we can come to meeting in the middle, the better off we’ll be.

The Swap

~ TheCobblersDaughter ~ 5 Comments

I lob my heart over to your side of the fence,
play five games of paddle-heart simultaneously,
try to keep busy, wait- wait- wait for you
to toss yours over. You catch the bloody mess
and try to hang on, crimson liquid trickling
down your arm. You observe the irregular
shape, study its pulsing blue veins, wonder,
perhaps, why I pitched it to you in the first place—
was it love? Or was I trying to fool you,
let the form fuse itself to your body, only to
snatch it away because your grip gave me
goose pimples. At one time, I might have said,
Hello-ooo. When the hell do you plan to finish
the swap? But I’ve learned that when I wait,
you surprise me, eventually climb over the fence,
deliver your heart in person, rest it in my hand,
remind me that wonderful things happen when I keep
quiet the beast clawing its way out of my chest.

Where Are You, Gen Xers?

~ TheCobblersDaughter ~ Leave a comment

My current job, working as the Senior Writer/Editor for a foundation at a land-grant university, involves sharing stories, Tweets, photos, and more on various social media. Most recently, on #GivingTuesday, I was checking out articles on LinkedIn, one of which mentioned “how to get Millennials to donate.” Since two of my children are Millennials in their early 20s, and I volunteer for another local foundation, I clicked on the link.

About 2/3 of the way into the article, I came across a paragraph that compared Millennial philanthropic trends with Baby Boomer trends. I kept reading, waiting to see how Gen Xers felt about philanthropy. Guess what? There was no mention of Gen Xers in the entire article. Zip. Zero. Zilch. So, I became curious. And like a Millennial, I went to Google and typed in Generation X.

Suddenly, a whole new world opened to me. I was born in 1968 and have always considered myself a Gen Xer. With a brother born in ’66 and one in ’75, I’m also the middle child. Coincidentally, Gen Xers are called the Neglected Middle Child, mostly because there are 70 million plus Boomers and 70 million plus Millennials, and there are only 50 million plus Gen Xers. Why the discrepancy? Well, lucky for us, even though the hippies were having a lot of sex, in the early 70s, birth control and legalized abortion helped them have fewer children.

After visiting a few more websites, I found conflicting information regarding the specific dates that designated a person as a Gen Xer. My theory holds at this: Gen Xers were born in between the early 60s and the early 80s. And, similar to astrology, if your birthdate straddles those years, you are said to be on the cusp, or a cusper. So, my uncle John, for instance, who was born in 1965, probably has Boomer and Gen Xer traits.

When I think about my being a Gen Xer, I think about being a child of divorced Boomer parents who needed to “find themselves,” walking everywhere by myself, and being raised on or by television. I often joke that my father (a single parent until I was six) used the TV as a babysitter. Through my research, I discovered I wasn’t alone. Many, if not most, Gen Xers were left home alone with little more than the TV and their siblings to keep them company. It’s probably why we love pop culture!

On a positive note, Gen Xers are independent, resilient, hard-working, and have a sardonic wit. I remember bristling, years ago, when I heard us called the “Slacker Generation.” WTF? When I was 12 I got a paper route. And from that moment on, my father gave me no more spending money. So then I worked as a babysitter. Then as a lifeguard. McDonald’s manager. Nursing home diet aid. Retail sales. Bakery cashier. Then, when I was 20, I joined the navy to get the G.I. Bill because my father wouldn’t help me pay for college.

I’m happy to report we are the generation responsible for creating Hip Hop and paving the way for ethnic diversity. When I think of my childhood, I think of Sesame Street, Captain Kangaroo, and the Electric Company, which we watched in second grade as part of our curriculum. Also, with my father, I watched shows like Good Times, What’s Happening, Laugh In, and the Sonny and Cher Show.

On a negative note, Gen Xers, because we were almost always left alone, referred to as the “latchkey” kids, and were often physically and sexually abused, have become the “most devoted parents in American history.” Some folks call us “helicopter parents.” Guilty as charged. Both of my adult daughters failed out of college, although they grew up watching me bust my butt to earn a BA, an MA, and an MFA, all in writing. I did that without parental support. My daughters have oodles of support. Have I killed their ability to stand on their own?

Anyway: this post is a plea. If you’re a Gen Xer, I want to hear from you! After all, peers are more important to us than parents. I plan to continue my research. If you want to share a story with me, please email me at cindyjoy68@gmail.com.

Happy Veterans Day from Nancy Navy

~ TheCobblersDaughter ~ Leave a comment

Yes, I served in the U.S. Navy from 1989 to 1993. It was one of the best decisions I ever made. The chance to go to college and leave my town of little opportunity was too great to pass up. I went to boot camp in Orlando, Florida, Apprenticeship School in San Diego, California, and worked as a data processor at a weather center in Monterey,  California for four years. I also attended Monterey Peninsula College, tutored elementary school children in reading, and participated in fund raisers.

After the navy, I moved to the Pacific Northwest. I attended Walla Walla Community College in Clarkston, Washington, and Lewis-Clark State College in Lewiston, Idaho. The G.I. Bill helped fund my bachelor’s degree. After earning my B.A. in English and Creative Writing, I went on to earn an M.A. in English from Western Washington University in Bellingham, Washington, and an M.F.A. in creative writing from University of Idaho in Moscow, Idaho.

I have lived in Moscow, Idaho for 14 years. My career post navy has consisted of food service, bank teller, writing tutor, and then writing (technical, creative, speeches), editing, and teaching writing and other courses. My current position as Senior Development Writer/Editor for the Washington State University Foundation is my dream job. I know the navy made all of this possible.

I feel incredibly grateful for making the decision to join the navy. Thank you to everyone who served in the military, especially overseas and during wartime. We are blessed.

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Complicated Co-parenting

~ TheCobblersDaughter ~ Leave a comment

This is a photo of my son Vinny crossing the finish line at the Down and Dirty Mud Run in Lewiston, Idaho. Vinny is 11, and I had accidentally signed him up for the 4.5 mile race that includes several obstacles, instead of the Mini Mud, which was a four-hour open event where he could simply participate in obstacles. Oops.

A few of my reasons for registering for the event were selfish: I love running, and I wanted to do the 4.5 miler. But mostly, Vinny’s father, whom I’ve been divorced from for five long years works for the group that sponsored the race. I knew Eric would be there, and I wanted to see him. I’m pretty sure he didn’t want to see me. It was Eric who filed for divorce after I admitted to having an affair, a mistake that made him feel tossed aside, insignificant.

Looking back, I thifinishednk I had the affair because I had been feeling tossed aside and insignificant in the marriage, but didn’t have the skills or faith in Eric to tell him. So, instead, I lit a fire underneath our relationship, which sent him running. I even dated the guy with whom I’d had the affair (it was a disaster), adding insult to Eric’s injury.

It’s only been in the last year that Eric and I have started talking about our breakup. He’s shown me his wounds, and I’ve acknowledged them. I’ve told him numerous times how much I regret the affair, the break up, and that I want him back. He won’t relent.

 

Eric has said although he’s not ready to be friends, that’s what we should be working toward. Friends. How strange that word sounds. We were friends. Best friends, for twelve years. And yet, we destroyed the foundation on which all good marriages are built. For, if you’re not friends, how can you expect to be lovers? Partners? Soul mates?

A few good sources tell me I should be grateful Eric wants to be friends. I know they’re right. But I feel anxious. Friends to me means no kissing. No intimate hugging. No love making. Ever. And Eric and I were great at those things. We were also great friends who shared secrets, gossip, and personal stories. Still, something in our dynamic made me unwilling to go to him when this guy at work started bugging me. And while I kept the guy at bay for weeks, he finally broke through to the vulnerable, overworked, underappreciated mother who devoured his attention, flirting, and dirty talk. After it was too late, I knew I was headed for disaster.

What keeps me sane right now is that adorable boy in the photo. He’s honest, funny, and cares deeply for everyone in his family, even his circle of friends. Eric and I conceived that boy when we were deeply in love. And though we may not be now, we work  hard to get along because we so love him.

I have no idea what the future holds, and it scares me to my core. My sources say I need to live one day at a time. Move the mountain one stone at a time. Breathe. Keep running, one foot in front of the other. Live in the present.

On Marilyn Monroe and Childhood Sexual Abuse

~ TheCobblersDaughter ~ Leave a comment

Fifty four years ago today, Marilyn Monroe was found dead in her bedroom from an overdose of pills meant to treat her depression. (Her death was ruled a suicide, as you may know.) I remember the first time I saw an image of Marilyn Monroe: it was on the Child of the 50s comedy album by Robert Klein. At the time, I spent many afternoons in the bedroom with my step uncle “Reggie.” We’ll get to that in a minute.

Reggie introduced me to Cheech and Chong, Robert Klein, Aerosmith, and Rush. During one afternoon while listening to Klein, I studied the album cover as he talked about putting a coin in a vending machine and getting a button with the now famous nude image of Marilyn Monroe. (If you look at my featured image, I’m talking about the two identical pictures just off center to the right in the collage.)

After I was made aware of Marilyn Monroe, I started to hear her name all the time and see images of her in cartoons, advertisements, magazines. There was even a pictorial of her in one of my father’s Playboys, which since I’m a child of the free-wheeling 70s, lay right on the coffee table in our living room.

I was struck dumb by the beauty Marilyn possessed. Sure, her hair was bleached and straightened, nose fixed, but even now, looking at the photos of her when she was simply Norma Jean, I found her breathtaking. My favorite film with her, Niagara, is worth a watch.

Fast forward to my early 20s. I had joined the navy after the death of my beloved older brother, left my hometown Binghamton, New York, and was lucky to get stationed at a weather center in Monterey, California. (Not far from Watsonville where Marilyn had once been named Miss Artichoke.) I visited Hollywood, saw Marilyn’s wax figure, and got the chills when I placed both hands in her hand-prints at Mann’s Chinese Theatre. I loved her.

I started reading books about Marilyn, biographies, anthologies, even an autobiography. She’d been abandoned by her birth mother, just like me. I’d never lived in an orphanage, but had a severely abusive stepmother. Marilyn was raped and sexually abused numerous times during her childhood. I’d never been raped, but Reggie started performing oral sex on me when I was four. His sister also molested me. The more I read about Marilyn and her problems with men, I started to wonder about myself–a woman terrified of commitment who eloped at 21 and dumped the guy three months later. In one book, Marilyn is said to have done the same thing in Mexico. (Some folks says it’s not true, but I believe it.)

Marilyn was unfaithful to every husband and lover. I’ve had many struggles with infidelity as well. The current psychology on childhood  sexual abuse tells us this type of behavior is not uncommon–the adult often tries to “work out” or repair what happened to them in the past, and that can lead to repeatedly looking for love in all the wrong places. A very smart writer I met once said, “A kid who’s been sexually abused is the world’s sex object.” The statement is both astute and heartbreaking.

If you’re lucky enough never to have endured sex abuse as a child, it might be difficult to have empathy for people who have. In my life this has been true. I’ve had family members say, “It was experimentation, get over it.” “That’s just an excuse because you were unfaithful.” One callous soul said, “You must have enjoyed it, because you never told your parents.”

Indulge me for a moment if you will. Imagine yourself at four. Or your child at four. (My uncle was 11 when he molested me. Chances are he was molested too, or at the very least exposed to inappropriate behavior.) Reggie bribed me with quarters so I would let him have his way in the bedroom. As I grew older, he gave me record albums or other presents. He said, “Don’t tell your Daddy because he’ll think you’re nasty.” Thank goodness, at age nine, I told him to stop. But the damage had been done.

Over the years, as I learned more about childhood abuse, I grew to feel empathy for Marilyn Monroe. She married for the first time at 16. Although marrying young was not uncommon at the time, I still see it as her getting the hell out of her current situation. In many of the books I’ve read about her, authors describe her as sexually frigid and a woman-child. When I hear “She slept her way to the top,” I prefer to see her not as a soulless woman using sex to get her way, but as a wounded child who believed the promises of men who offered her a better life.

Although I am in my late forties, I am still a hopeful child. Not long ago, I believed the promises of a man, even left my happy marriage. Now, I’m alone and missing my ex-husband and the amazing life we had. I’m grateful for the therapists I’ve had who’ve tried to help me heal from my past. I have a fabulous one now and we’re doing EMDR. It’s not over; and it’s not easy. Today, I wish to say, Rest in peace, Norma Jean. I’ll always be a fan. ❤

 

 

I Miss My Best Friend

~ TheCobblersDaughter ~ Leave a comment

Four years ago I was dealt two devastating blows. In April 2012, my divorce became final. Eric, my best friend of 11 years and I could not get over my affair. His anger and my guilt had made communicating nothing but shouting matches. We tried counseling, but whenever the counselor called my cheating partner a “predator,” I got upset. When the counselor asked what I’d gotten from said predator, I answered, “He talked to me. He flirted with me.” Eric said, “If he did it, I won’t.” We were at an impasse.

The worst part was that I never wanted to lose Eric. Some ridiculous part of me believed I could tell him about the affair, he would understand that something had been missing from our marriage, and we would talk it out and fix it together. How arrogant and naive! Eric’s deep hurt came out in anger, and because I couldn’t deal with his emotions or even empathize I turned to the Predator. Big surprise: the union did not last.

Later that year, in October, my father passed away after a sudden illness. I traveled back and forth from my home in Idaho to his in New York to settle his estate. After I returned home for good, Eric came to my house and gave me a hug. (My dad loved him too.) But, it was too late. I’d lost two best friends within six months. 2012 was a bad year.

Here we are in 2016 and guess where I am? Right in the middle of the 5 stages of grief. But it’s not for my father. Of course, I miss him. I loved his angry, sensitive and complicated self. But I’m stuck in the bargaining phase over my other best friend–the one I thought I’d be with forever. “If you take me back, I will never hurt you again.” “You’re the only man I ever loved.” “If we could just work it out, our love will be stronger.”

Big surprise: none of these tactics work. Eric says he’s moved on. I stabbed him in the back. He owes me nothing. He’d rather be alone for the rest of his life than endure that much pain again. Sigh. So, I’m in therapy–trying to stay sane and navigate my life without the love of my life, my best friend. To further complicate matters, Eric and I share an 11 year old son who’s gorgeous, witty, and sensitive. So, there’s no moving away, not seeing Eric, or hiding in my house.

What have I learned? Plenty. But probably the most important lesson is to be honest. Instead of going outside the marriage, I should have turned to Eric and said, “We have some issues. Can we talk about them?” But that would have taken courage. What if he rejected me? Ironic. Perhaps, only perhaps, if I would have taken a leap of faith six years ago and told Eric what I needed. . . Who knows?